SprayCast: Mitigating Pesticide Drift through High Resolution Forecasting, Modeling, and Optimization

Off target pesticide spray drift is an economically and environmentally significant problem. Off target drift can damage susceptible crops, orchards, and apiaries, induce herbicide resistant weed development, damage native pollinator habitats, create human-health related pesticide exposure hazards, and create social and legal strife as a result of adjudicating exposure incidents. SprayCast uses mathematical and statistical techniques to provide highly localized and accurate forecasts of drift related weather conditions and actual drift potential in real time to pesticide applicators. SprayCast improves visibility into drift potential and helps applicators plan to use restricted use pesticides safely and compliantly. Phase I results have indicated that the SprayCast forecasts can be accurate and precise relative to competing technologies and that forecast and risk indicators can be generated and delivered to an end user feasibly. All algorithmic and computational tasks in the SprayCast application pipeline are scalable and feasible for delivery in a commercial application. Pesticide drift is an enormous and expensive problem for farmers, applicators, regulators, and agrochemical manufacturers. Applicators derive direct value from SprayCast through mitigation of liability by safer spraying and more evident regulatory compliance. Likewise, agrochemical companies' liability exposure is decreased as their customers use their products more safely. Farmers can reduce crop loss/damage with SprayCast tools, and regulators can use SprayCast analysis to assist in investigating drift incidents. SprayCast informational products will be available via API and can be integrated through license agreements into existing consumer facing drift reduction and farm management software tools. The North American market for crop protection chemicals has been estimated at $12.86 billion in 2019, and in the same year the US market for precision farming software was estimated to be $521.9 million. Competing technologies for assessment of drift risk include in-field measurements, nearest neighbor weather station observations, and gridded forecast interpolation. SprayCast compares favorably to each technology by responding to factors that can influence wind fields at relevant local scales, invariance to perverse incentives that can result in in situ measurement bias, and by providing meaningful planning and risk assessment across multiple drift pathways. SprayCast’s potential environmental impacts are significant, as reduced pesticide drift can result in preservation of natural habitats and pollinators and reduction in potential for human-health relevant exposure incidents.